UC Berkeley iSchool seeks candidates for the inaugural position of Associate Provost of the Division of Data Science and Information and Dean of the School of Information

Data science is rapidly transforming society and the academy. In response, Berkeley has established programs in data science that span the campus, and is now looking for an Associate Provost to lead these efforts and to ensure that Berkeley’s engagement with data science reflects the Berkeley’s values of excellence and inclusion and enhances their mission of serving the public through the creation and sharing of knowledge. As an institutional vehicle for moving forward in data science, Berkeley has created a new division, provisionally entitled the Division of Data Science and Information, which will be built on the disciplines of computation and statistics, their application across fields, and the exploration of their human, social, political, artistic, and scientific implications.

The new division will wholly incorporate the current Data Sciences Division, the School of Information (iSchool), the Department of Statistics, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS). EECS and Statistics will also remain a part of their current colleges. A signature of the new division will be the Data Science Commons, a new structure for Berkeley that will empower groups of faculty across the University—with common interests in diverse aspects of the foundations, applications, and implications of data science—to establish new cross-cutting academic programs.

The Associate Provost will serve as the leader of this new division, and as Dean of the School of Information. Among the roles envisioned for this new position are fostering data science across the campus broadly and supporting interdisciplinary synergies within this new division. There is both a pedagogical mission and a research imperative to data science. Berkeley’s efforts are already off to a strong start; the new, integrative undergraduate data science major is the fastest growing major in Berkeley’s history, attracting more than 1,000 pre-declarations in its first year. Data science is also rapidly infusing into curricula and classes across the campus. In terms of research, Berkeley, long a leader in these fields, is building on its long-standing strengths and breaking ground across new frontiers. The scope of this movement is remarkable: for example, this academic year, one fifth of all faculty searches at Berkeley are strongly tied to data science.

To bring about this innovative change, Berkeley seeks an Associate Provost and Dean who will provide vision as well as strategic and intellectual leadership to this endeavor. Candidates must have an earned doctoral degree or equivalent international degree and a distinguished record of scholarship that merits a tenured appointment as a Professor. Candidates must also have significant leadership experience in a complex institutional environment as well as a track record of fostering diverse, inclusive and excellent organizations, and in seeking philanthropic support and establishing strategic partnerships.

UC Berkeley is internationally renowned for comprehensive excellence, the opportunities it affords students of all backgrounds, and pioneering achievements across all disciplines. The Berkeley campus is home to more than 30,000 undergraduates and more than 11,000 graduate students, and approximately 1,500 ladder-rank faculty across more than 65 academic departments and 80 research units.